20 Years of Elite Grip Strength: Eric Roussin

In the Lattice Training podcast today we have another guest from the arm lifting world whose long term track record of training, competing and record breaking accomplishments is rarely rivalled across the grip strength sports. It’s rare that we get to interview someone who’s really been focusing on something so specific to climbing performance - AKA grip strength - for over 20 yrs. 

Eric Roussin, is from Canada and has a long history of competitive arm wrestling, having started as a teenager in 1996 and has been competing in Grip Sports for just over 10 yrs. He won the Canadian overall National Title 5yrs in a row and also a gold medal in the World Arm Lifting Championships on the Rolling Thunder and has the world record on Napalms Nightmare and 2 arm thick bar lift.  

Interestingly, Eric is a blend of competitor and historian so he’s got an incredible knowledge of what’s developed over time and an understanding of training and performance methodology, which at Lattice, we’re always interested to learn more about! 

Check out in the show notes at the bottom, some really useful links provided by Eric, who kindly provided us all with some signposting to learn more on this front. 

In today’s episode we covered:

1. What got Eric into arm wrestling originally and his formative years of training.
2. What he thinks about grip or hand strength in arm lifting and the repercussions for training methodology or approach. 
3. His thoughts on the differences between arm lifting and arm wrestling.
4. How he trains for grip lifting, rather than grip pulling or hanging.
5. Whether he does any cross-training.
6. How important he thinks strength in the entire kinetic chain is. Are there any common “weak” links he sees?
7. What does the grip sports community think of fingerboarding.
8. What are the King Kong Grip Challenges. 

David Horne - site: http://www.davidhorne-gripmaster.com/index.html

David Horne Basic training routine video: https://youtu.be/FGuVJAj96SE 

Grip Board (the world’s most popular grip strength related forum): www.gripboard.com (event King Kong details can be found in the Grip Contests section)

Popular facebook page for all things grip: https://www.facebook.com/groups/330749460395996 Eric’s websites: www.canadagripsport.com & www.thearmwrestlingarchives.com

The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.

The Lattice jingle is brought to you by Devin Dabney, music producer of the outdoor industry who also hosts the American Climbing Project.